The Record: Christie aide's failure

REGINA EGEA was not supposed to be a sensational witness testifying Thursday before the joint-legislative committee investigating the closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in September. The U.S. attorney investigating the GWB scandal has asked the committee not to call several high-profile witnesses; Egea clearly was not on that list, which would indicate she is not perceived as a key player.

Yet Egea's admission that she deleted a text message to Governor Christie relating to Port Authority officials' testimony before the same committee raises some flags. As does her lack of curiosity over the growing scandal.

Egea was the director of the Authorities Unit in the Governor's Office during the lane closures and in the months immediately after. Her testimony was consistent with much of what has been publicly said by other Christie officials still working for the governor: She thought the lane closures were a legitimate traffic study. Her lack of curiosity remains baffling.

Even months after the lane closures, there was little effort to get at the truth or challenge the narrative from Christie's Port Authority of New York and New Jersey top appointees. This remains a liability for Christie's future political ambitions. The governor repeatedly says he cannot know what thousands of state employees do. But he should know what his top officials are doing, and the sheer volume of key aides who did little or nothing to address the growing crisis shows they were at best totally unprepared for the jobs Christie gave them.

How can Egea – who helped prepare then-Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni to testify before the legislative committee – not know deleting a text to the governor relating to testimony before that committee was wrong? She should not delete any texts to the governor. And she should not need a memo from some newly created commission explaining that.

And therein lies what remains unsettling about Christie's front office. Highly skilled men and women used government and personal email accounts to correspond about government issues. Some attempted to have emails deleted. Egea admits she deleted a text relating to the GWB scandal but cannot recall when she deleted it.

There may be nothing criminal about being unaware that the lane closures were not part of a traffic study plan, but perhaps an act of political retribution. But there is nothing laudable in asking no hard questions about the lane closures during the subsequent months.

Egea's explanation that New Jersey and New York officials continually fought inside the Port Authority and that history affected her initial reaction to Executive Director Pat Foye's email ending the lane closures is also unsatisfactory. She was the governor's point person to all authorities. If the Port Authority was truly that politically toxic, why wasn't she raising those concerns with Christie?

Given her admission of deleting a GWB-related text to the governor, we fail to see how Christie can make Egea his next chief of staff. In the wake of the bridge scandal, which has resulted in the resignations or firings of several Christie aides and appointees, the last thing the governor should be doing is putting someone whose conduct during the scandal is hardly praise worthy in charge of his front office.

Clearly, Christie wants to return to business as usual. But isn't that what got him into this mess?